Skip to main content
Dessert

Coconut Pudding

A baked coconut custard made with milk, coconut, sugar, crumbs, and eggs.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Milk and coconut are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,648 recipes. Both carry delta-dodecalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Coconut Pudding

Ingredients

Directions

The book gives no oven temperature. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps was added when the recipe was transcribed, as a starting point.

Prepare the custard

  1. Heat the milk and desiccated coconut in a saucepan until boiling.

  2. Strain the mixture to remove the coconut.

  3. Stir in the sugar and cracker or bread crumbs.

  4. Cool the mixture for a few minutes.

  5. Add the beaten yolks of the eggs. Mix the mixture well.

Bake the pudding

  1. Pour the mixture into a pudding dish.

  2. Place the pudding dish in a pan of hot water.

  3. Bake at 350°F (175°C) until set but not watery.

Top and brown

  1. Beat the egg whites to stiff peaks.

  2. Add 2 teaspoons of sugar to the egg whites.

  3. Spread the egg whites on top of the pudding.

  4. Return the pudding to the oven to brown slightly.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Milk + coconuttop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,648 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-dodecalactone (sweet, creamy).

  2. Milk + breadtop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,466 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-undecenal (sweet).

  3. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  4. Coconut + breadtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together112 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Milk + eggtop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together88,785 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Eggs
Yolks thicken the custard as they set, and beaten whites form the light topping.
Milk
Forms the liquid base that the eggs set into a custard.
Sugar
Adds sweetness and helps stabilise the beaten egg whites.
Cracker or bread crumbs
Absorb liquid and give the custard a softer, more body-filled texture.
Desiccated coconut
Infuses the milk with coconut flavour before being strained out.

The step that matters

Bake until set but not watery. Egg proteins coagulate with gentle heat and form a firm custard. Underbaking leaves it runny, while overbaking squeezes out liquid and makes it curdle or weep. The hot water bath keeps the heat gentle and even.

Swap the coconut

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (milk, sugar, bread, egg):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Figfits better
  3. Datesfits better
  4. Coconutthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against milk, sugar, bread, egg. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

More coconut pudding recipes

Baked 5Rum 4Tapioca 4Orange 3 See all 266 →

You might also like

Bread PuddingBread Pudding153 recipesSoft Ginger BreadSoft Ginger Bread85 recipesOrange Potato BreadOrange Potato Bread80 recipesBrown Bread PuddingBrown Bread Pudding47 recipes